The Billionaire's Desire (A Billionaire BWWM Steamy Romance) (19 page)

August
let me stand in awe for a moment before we both heard it. The telltale thudding
of an approaching helicopter.

"Holy
shit!" She turned just as everyone in the office heard at the same time.
The buzz of conversation froze as each head turned towards the noise of the
approaching helicopter.

"He's here!"

☼
    
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"Oh
for fuck's sake," I growled as I looked out of the window.

The
line of people queued up to greet me on the helipad stretched all the way to
the rooftop door. The
crowd of eager faces were
looking up at me as if I were some kind of approaching God. It gave me instant
indigestion.
 
I went to twist my
wedding ring and for the millionth time in a row I felt my heart sink when I
realized it wasn’t there…

Why was
I coming back again?

Dalton,
my personal assistant, peered out of the helicopter on his side. The bright
sunshine glinted off of his balding head. "I'm sorry sir," he spoke
up in his smooth, unctuous voice. "Word of your arrival must have leaked
out."

"I'd
say so," I grouched, and sank further down into my seat. This wasn't what
I had wanted. Back when I started my company, it was just as an outlet for me
to make beautiful clothes. It was my ex-wife who had pushed me to this point.
Bright and ambitious and completely soulless - that was Dana Kingsley - and she
had poked and prodded and berated me until my little design house morphed and
metastasized into this bloated behemoth below me. I was now responsible for the
financial well-being of over three hundred direct employees, and partially
responsible for thousands more working around the globe… These were numbers
that never failed to make me sweat.

Sure, I
was good at it. This business came naturally to me. Born the son of a tailor
and a dressmaker, fabric was in my blood. Fashion is like second nature to me.
The fashion magazines are always praising my innate sense of color and cut,
even as the company lost its way. With my marriage was over all I wanted to do
was return to my couture roots.

But
first I had to return to my company.

Someone
needed to right this ship.
 
The
enterprise that bore my name was now a bloated, sagging mess, licensing to
cheap mills using sweatshop labor.
 
Kingsley sheets, Kingsley tents, Kingsley dog collars: my name was
everywhere but my influence was nowhere.
 
It was time to return to the real work of designing quality
clothes.
 
I needed to stop licking
my wounds and regain control of the people now staring up at me.
 
I needed to get to work.

And
that meant they were going to start working too. None of this standing idly and
staring at me nonsense.
 

"When
you get out, I want you to tell them to get back to work.
 
No parties, no gladhanding, none of that
bullshit.
 
I'm their employer, not a
goddamned rock star."

"Yes
sir." Only the slight upward tilt of Dalton's bushy eyebrows betrayed his
surprise at my vehemence. I paid him good money to put up with me.
 

I'm
pretty damn terrible to put up with…

We only
bounced once upon landing. The pilot cut the engine and the sudden silence was
almost as deafening as the roar of the rotors had been moments prior. Dalton
jumped agilely from his door. His grace always took me by surprise. For such a
big man he moved with the innate fluidity of a former athlete. That was
something he hadn't lost, even as age stole his hair and his waistline.

I saw
him waving his big arms over his head.
 
It looked like he was scattering a gaggle of geese.
 
Several aggrieved faces greeted me, but
I didn't care.
 
I wasn't paying them
to gawk at me. Soul-sucking yes men, every one of them.
 
Even the ones I didn't recognize.

I tried
to twist my wedding ring again.
 
Dammit.

When
news of Dana's infidelity had broken, my so-called handlers had seen fit to
keep it from me until I was the last one to know that my wife had been caught
with her tennis instructor. I had to find out from goddamn WWD magazine.

It was
humiliating.

Solitude
had been my friend. Holing myself up in my rambling 17th-century cottage had
allowed me time to refresh and regroup. I thought I had had enough of being
alone. Clearly I had been mistaken.

I
needed a goddamned cup of coffee.

Once
the crowd dispersed, I slipped down from my seat on to the baking heat of the
rooftop and fairly sprinted to the door.
 
The pilot lifted off again, the backwash hitting me square in the back
and rippling my dress shirt.
 
It was
so hot in this city.
 
How had I
forgotten that?

One
floor down from the roof was my office.
 
I had the architect build me a glass-walled crow's nest so that I could
look out over the open expanse of the office space below.
 
I loved it up here.
 
I could see everything but no one could
see me unless I sent for them.
 
It
made me feel like I was in my boyhood treehouse.

My
office was exactly how I left it; right down to my favorite chipped mug perched
precariously at the corner of my desk. Someone had at least washed and rinsed
it in my absence.

"Okay
Dalton, three things." I didn't need to turn to know that Dalton was right
there at my side.

Dalton
immediately whipped out the tiny notebook that he always carried. He poised
himself with pen at the ready and nodded his head. I strode to the window and
crossed my hands behind me as I looked out into the tumult below. Disappointed
employees were dispersing from the elevators and returning to their desks all
clumped together in gossipy little groups.
 
Didn't these people ever do any work?

I took
a deep breath. "First, I need a cup of coffee. Second, I need Annette to
bring me up to speed with the office politics crap. Third, I need a meeting
with the heads of each department."

Dalton
looked stricken for a moment.

"What?"

"Sir,
I must inform you that Annette was let go from the company."

I felt
my jaw drop. "What? I thundered. "Who the hell had the nerve to fire
my personal secretary?"

Dalton
ran his head over his bald spot nervously. "Well sir, I guess that would
most likely be me."

"You?!"

My
assistant flushed from his neck all the way up to his shining bald head.
"I didn't want to bother you with city drama. You told me so yourself. You
said 'Dalton, I don't want to hear about all that petty bull shit, I just want to
design.'"

My
indignation softened slightly. "Okay so I did say that, that's true. But
what the heck does Annette have to do with petty office drama?"

"Well
sir, it seems she was caught using your personal apartment for her own… ah…
personal uses."

"What?!
Annette? Are you sure?"

Dalton
nodded with his lips pressed together.
 
I could tell he was unwilling to cast aspersions on a woman's good
name.
 
He always was the soul of
discretion.

But I
wasn't.
 
"You're telling me
that my fifty-three year old, married secretary was having illicit sex in my
personal apartment?"

Dalton
flushed even brighter red. "It really was quite the scandal. We had to let
her go of course. It's up to you whether or not you want to press charges,
sir."

 
I waved my hands irritably. I was having
a hard time getting the image of my mousy secretary getting caught
in flagrante delicto
out of my head. It
was a disturbing image.

"No,
I don't ever want to think about that again, Dalton. But now what the hell am I
supposed to do without a secretary?"

"Well
sir, we can start looking for candidates immediately."

"I
don't have time to look for candidates, I need someone today."

"I
could to try to do my best, sir?" Dalton offered

I
couldn't help it, I laughed. "Dalton, you're one hell of a good assistant,
but your eye for design is complete shit and you know it."

Dalton
grinned ruefully. "Fair enough sir, I'll see if we can pull someone from
the floor."

"Yes,
yes go do that." I agreed and turned back to the window.

I heard
him huffing quickly out the door. Dalton was going to find someone and that
meant I could relax slightly. I trusted the man.

"Why
am I back again?" I asked my empty office.

It was
a rhetorical question of course. Work was all I knew how to do, work was what I
was good at. I was here to work and drown out the pains of heartbreak that
still tugged at me whenever I felt the nakedness on my ring finger.

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The
stack of magazines teetered dangerously. I had to shoot my hands up quickly to
steady them before they toppled to the floor in an avalanche of paper.

I felt
like I had been standing in this corner my entire life.
 
The excitement this morning seemed to
have died down quickly. Mr. Kingsley had ignored everyone who had run upstairs
to greet him and made a beeline to his office, leaving a trail of disappointed
employees in his path. Dejectedly, they had wandered back down the roof and
settled down in the main office area in clumps of twos and threes. Their voices
buzzed quietly about his return, leaving me out entirely.

No one
had come to see about me starting my first day. Even August had disappeared
into a knot of worried looking people milling by the break room.

I
checked the clock again. Only one hour had crawled by since I arrived. Being
ignored makes time go by very, very slowly.

I was
so eager to be distracted from the monotony of waiting that I was the first to
spy the bald man as he emerged from the elevators. I noticed that he moved with
the grace of an athlete, though age had packed some pounds onto his frame. He
reminded me of a former football player gone to seed.

But as
I watched him, I quickly realized that he was someone with a lot of power in
the company. His presence in the office quickly dispersed all the little
gossiping knots of people. Everyone scurried back to their desks, and pretended
to work.

He
moved quietly from desk to desk, speaking in low tones. His presence was
greeted with wide eyes and fearful smiles. I watched, fascinated, wondering who
he could be. This couldn't be Mr. Kingsley. I knew what he looked like, or at
least I had ten years ago. But clearly this man was someone to be reckoned
with.

As the
bald man moved from desk to desk, his questions were answered with quick shakes
of the head. Whatever he was asking was greeted in the negative, over and over
and over again. I saw spots of frustrated color blooming on his cheeks as he
made his way up the row towards me.

"Hello
there," he said to me by way of greeting. "I don't believe I've had
the pleasure."

Startled
that he would address me directly, I hopped off of my perch, nearly upsetting
the delicate balance of the magazines again. "That's because today is my
first day, sir. My name is Nakia James."

He
cocked a quizzical eyebrow. "I wasn't aware of any new hires being brought
on." His voice was low and threatening. I was instantly on guard.

"No
sir, sorry for the confusion, I'm actually an intern."

He
looked me up and down. "You're a student?"

"Yes
sir, at Forest University. I'm a sophomore design major."

I could
see an idea playing across his face. "So that means you are familiar with
design concepts?"

"Of
course."

"And
you know how to work a computer?"

I was
confused. "Of course I do, sir."

"And
how are you at following directions explicitly?"

"I
have a 4.0 GPA sir," I smiled. "Following directions is what I do the
best."

"So
you're an intern, where is your mentor?"

"In
all the of the excitement today, sir, I have not yet met them."

"So
you haven't been assigned to a department yet?"

"No,
sir."

He
nodded and clapped his hands together. "Then I'm assigning you to one now.
Follow me." He turned gracefully and indicated that I should follow.

I
hesitated. "I'm sorry, I didn't get your name."

He
strode forward, not looking back at me as he answered, "Dalton Cole,
personal assistant to Mr. Kingsley."

Surprise
made me stumble. "Mr. Kingsley?"

He
didn't answer and I scurried after him. I caught a glimpse of August's
wide-open mouth as we crossed the lobby together. "What's going on?"
she mouthed at me.

"I
have no idea," I whispered back as the elevator dinged open.

As if
in answer to my question, Dalton pressed the button for the top floor of the
building. The one where Mr. Kingsley's office was located.

The
elevator opened in to a glass walled space suspended high above the office
floor below. We had a bird's eye view of all of the tops of people's heads as
they scurried around like ants. A broad, glass topped desk nearly took up the
entire space. And behind that desk stood a man, his broad back to us.

His
dark chestnut hair was longer than I had expected, curling slightly above his
ears in thick waves that showed the slightest hint of gray forming at the
temples. But his arms clasped behind it showed deeply tanned forearms and
strong capable hands. He had his legs planted wide apart as he stared down from
his perch into the office below him.

Dalton
cleared his throat. "Sir, I checked with the managers and each department,
and no one has anyone they can spare. Since you've been gone, there's been a
self-imposed hiring freeze. Except…" he gestured towards me, "for the
intern program."

Zachary
Kingsley turned and my breath caught in my throat. And I swore he was the first
man I had ever seen.
 

I've
never been into white men before.
 
I've dated, sure, but never let things get too intimate.
 
I had my studies to worry about, and my
mom's health to occupy me.
 

And
besides… There was always something holding me back.
 
Maybe it was boredom?
 
Maybe it was dissatisfaction with the
immaturity of the guys in college?
 

Either
way, my eyes felt like I was seeing a
man
for the first time.

Zachary
Kingsley was the real deal.

It was
the ruggedness of his face that first struck me.
 
His face was all strong bones and sharp
angles.
 
It looked like he had been
cut from stone.
 
Dark, stormy brows
perched above his oceanic blue eyes that managed to be simultaneously deep set
and piercing.
 
His high cheekbones
forced them upward into a catlike curve.
 
His straight nose led my eye down to the only bit of softness he
possessed, his wide, sensuous mouth that seemed at odds with the ruggedness
above it.
 
His mouth was appealing.
His mouth was kind.
 
It was the kind
of mouth that would brush against your skin gently, while his eyes lit you on
fire from within.

Holy shit, get it together Nakia
.
 
If ever there was a time to fake it, it
was now.